Bees & Bugs

Stingless Bees

Tiny bee, Tetragonisca angustula

Meet this gorgeous little bee, Tetragonisca angustula, a small eusocial bee found in Mexico, Central and South America. I took this photo in central Belize in December 2019. Each bee is only 5mm long.

This is an exciting new book by Dr Christoph Grüter, a Senior Lecturer at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, UK. His work investigates the behaviour, ecology and evolution of social insects. Stingless bees are tropical eusocial bees. They produce honey, pollinate crops and collect pollen from tens of thousands of plant species and are the oldest & largest group of social bees (552 species listed in the book).

All Photos by Jennifer Marshman, Dec 2019
Taken in central Belize at the Jaguar Reserve in the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary.

Urban Garden

Andrena mining bees

Discovered several Andrena mining bees nesting in one of the raised beds in our garden.

Augochlora pura bees

We have a lot of wood in our yard, mostly brought home for wood turning projects. This year there are countless tiny metallic green bees (I believe small green sweat bees, Augochlora pura) nesting in the logs, found daily on the wild carrot (Queen Anne's lace - Daucus carota). Today I got to watch one excavate her nest as others flew around, in and out of their tunnel nests in the same log.

We spotted these a couple of months ago back in May as well.